Sad to read of Lawson’s passing
I played men’s fast-pitch softball at Terre Haute Softball Stadium at First and Farrington from the time I got out of law school in 1979 until I turned age 50. During those years I met, played with and played against hundreds of guys from the area.
I would say in my humble opinion that two of the better players ever and unquestionably the two nicest, finest individuals I ever played with were Mike Phillips and Bobby Joe Lawson.
I am inspired to write this letter as I was sad to read Thursday's obituaries and learn of Bobby Joe’s passing.
As everybody knows, “Big Mike” died a few years back.
I am proud that I had the privilege of playing with and against these two gentlemen and I am saddened by their passing.
A lot of us had years of fun and fellowship at the old softball stadium. The team in heaven just got significantly better. With Mike at first base and Bobby Joe at third, God’s team has the infield corners covered by two of the best.
— John A. Kesler II
Terre Haute
Spending remains primary problem
Your editorial on Wednesday, Feb. 26, left me scratching my head.
In the second paragraph you highlighted the action taken by the House to raise taxes on the “wealthiest Americans” to avoid the “fiscal cliff” and that the budget cuts were forestalled until early March. But yet a few paragraphs later you bemoan the fact that congressional Republicans refuse to act in a “balanced” manner.
How can this be the case as expressed by your own words? The tax increases were enacted in late December, so are we to understand that we must increase them again as a means of getting an agreement on reducing the deficit? We are rapidly approaching the end of the line if we continue to pursue this line of reasoning. Will you be satisfied when taxes are increased to the point that one cannot have any reasonable chance of retaining what they earn or accumulate? How do you think this will help the economy grow?
It seems unreasonable to me to get our shorts in a knot over a reduction of the rate of increase of spending by less than 2 percent than to address the underlying issue of unconstrained government spending.
As this nation is now indebted to the tune of $16.5 trillion and running annual deficits of more than $1 trillion, I can surmise that the issue is spending, not taxes. This administration has burdened every citizen of this country with an additional debt exceeding $19,000 per person. If you remove the citizens that are too young to be in the workforce and the citizens that work but do not have any federal income tax liability, you are left with a much smaller pool of taxpayers that will have to carry the burden of these debts.
It does not take an economist to recognize the enormous amount of money that has to be collected to reverse this debt. I contend that continuing to increase taxes will be self-defeating to this country. It is imperative that we reduce spending and increase economic activity by reducing the tax burden on the wealth creators.
I do have a suggestion that will reduce the long-term debt by selling or licensing the vast amount of land and resources that are owned by the American people. As these resources and lands are turned into productive activities the Treasury will receive both the monies from the sales and the tax revenues generated from the economic activities.
If we fail to reduce the spending in this country we are going to face a very bleak future.
— Raymond E. Broshar
Terre Haute
Throwing money at ISU ‘ugliness’
Well, what do you know. The Academe at the Indiana State University wants us lowly peons to give them our hard-earned cash to tear down a couple of inefficient and “ugly” buildings.
You should be able to believe that the people that are running our universities, with all of those letters behind their names, would be intelligent enough to design and build efficient and “beautiful” buildings while using other people’s money.
I suppose that when they see the under-educated politicians spending our country trillions of dollars into debt each year, they have to ask, what is the big deal about spending a few million to build and tear down inefficient and “ugly” buildings.
— Sam Wallace
Casey, Ill.
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